


Meet the Parents

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Tortall - Pierce
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-26
Updated: 2010-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ficlets in which Kel brings Buri home to meet her folks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Mama, please relax.” Kel squeezed her mother's hands. “It's going to be fine. She'll love you. And you'll love her.” I hope, she added silently.

As soon as her daughter released her fingers, Ilane lifted her hands in a gesture of confused worry. “I know, Kel.”

“If anything, I'm the one who should be worried.”

“My dear.” Ilane cupped Kel's cheek. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, with Buri. The only thing missing is for her to be part of my family.” She held her mother's gaze, steadily. “I'm lucky to have this family. We've always collected strays, haven't we? I'm just bringing home another one.”


	2. Chapter 2

At least, Kel thought, her brother Anders was nearly the same age as Buri. She had, at times, been fleetingly attracted to people closer to her parents' age than her own; she'd always worried about the awkwardness that would come with bringing someone like that to meet her mother and father. She had worried about acquiring step-children: youngsters who would see her as unfairly trying to replace a true parent, or adults awkwardly close to her own age. She had worried about finding her place, as a lady knight, in another noble family.

Instead, she had Buri, whose only family – in a manner of speaking – was the queen. “Do you love her?” Thayet had asked, and Kel had answered with an unqualified, honest affirmative. “Then make sure you treat her right,” she ordered, and that was that.

Kel hoped Buri's meeting with her family would go as well.


	3. Chapter 3

The other issue – that Buri was a woman – was harder to sidestep.

“I know you opted not to have a noble marriage,” Ilane had said, when Kel told her. “But I always thought you might meet someone, later in life.”

At twenty-five, most of Kel's friends were married and producing heirs. Kel had to smile. “I have.”

“Not someone to marry.”

Kel bit back a sigh. “You said you want me to be happy. Mama, I promise you, there is no one and nothing in the world that can make me happy the way Buri does. Isn't that enough?”


	4. Chapter 4

“You want me to meet your parents?” Kel hadn't expected Buri to be so surprised.

“You don't have to,” Kel said, carefully. “I just... thought it would be kind of nice. Even Conal brought someone home for Midwinter. And I've told them about us, of course.”

Buri surprised Kel again by wrapping both arms around her, knocking her back onto the bed, and kissing her soundly. “I'm honored,” she said, when they finally stopped for more than a second. “I haven't had anyone offer something like that before.”

“Not even...” Kel steeled herself to say it. “Not even Raoul?”

Buri shook her head. “Not even.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Buri Tourakom?” asked Piers of Mindelan, when Kel first told him of her relationship with Buri. “Isn't she the one who was betrothed to – ?”

“She wasn't,” Kel said, reminding herself to stay calm. Her father was a student of different cultures, making a point to respect each one. But in some ways, he was the most Yamani of them all, and it wouldn't do to let him see her annoyance. “It was a dreadfully persistant rumor – and they were involved, at one point – but they were never promised.”

“Hmm,” he finally said. “I'm sure you could do a lot worse, Kel.”


	6. Chapter 6

At dinner, they were all awkwardly polite, with faces that might as well have been stone. Kel was startled to find herself the one whose emotions were easiest to read, just then. The scowl that was, for Buri, customary at such times, had been replaced by a careful neutrality. Piers and Ilane both wore Yamani masks more perfect than Kel could ever hope to manage. The realization – and the thought of what her friends would think, if they knew that she was the expressive one – nearly made her laugh out loud. Then Buri's foot brushed hers under the table, bringing a hint of comfort. And she realized: it was actually going rather well. Her parents might even approve.


	7. Chapter 7

“I like them,” Buri said, surprising a laugh from Kel.

“I mean it,” she continued. “You're lucky to have them.”

All at once, Kel realized she had forgotten that Buri lost her parents: her mother, killed defending Thayet's mother; her father, almost certainly dead in the war (but how could she even be sure?). “I'm lucky in a lot of things,” Kel said, wrapping an arm around Buri's waist as they walked from the Mindelan townhouse to the palace.

Buri stretched to whisper in her ear, “So I am.”

They kissed once, quickly, and then continued their walk.

“Think they'll invite us for Samhien?” Buri asked.

Kel found herself grinning. “I'll find out.”


End file.
